Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1 · Charles Darwin
C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, September 25th [1853]. My dear Hooker, I have read your paper with great interest; it seems all very clear, and will form an admirable introduction to the New Zealand Flora, or to any Flora in the world. How few generalizers there are among systematists; I really suspect there is something absolutely opposed to each other and hostile in the two frames of mind required for systematising and reasoning on large collections of facts. Many of your arguments appear to me very well put, and, as far as my experience goes, the candid way in which you discuss the subject is unique. The whole will be very useful to me whenever I undertake my volume, though parts take the wind very completely out of my sails; it will be all nuts to me...for I have for some time determined to give the arguments on BOTH sides (as far as I could), instead of arguing on the mutability side alone.
In my own Cirripedial work (by the way, thank you for the dose of soft solder; it does one--or at least me--a great deal of good)--in my own work I have not felt conscious that disbelieving in the mere PERMANENCE of species has made much difference one way or the other; in some few cases (if publishing avowedly on doctrine of non-permanence), I should NOT have affixed names, and in some few cases should have affixed names to remarkable varieties. Certainly I have felt it humiliating, discussing and doubting, and examining over and over again, when in my own mind the only doubt has been whether the form varied TO-DAY OR YESTERDAY (not to put too fine a point on it, as Snagsby (In 'Bleak House.') would say). After describing a set of forms as distinct species, tearing up my MS., and making them one species, tearing that up and making them separate, and then making them one again (which has happened to me), I have gnashed my teeth, cursed species, and asked what sin I had committed to be so punished. But I must confess that perhaps nearly the same thing would have happened to me on any scheme of work. I am heartily glad to hear your Journal (Sir J.D. Hooker's 'Himalayan Journal.') is so much advanced; how magnificently it seems to be illustrated! An "Oriental Naturalist," with lots of imagination and not too much regard to facts, is just the man to discuss species! I think your title of 'A Journal of a Naturalist in the East' very good; but whether "in the Himalaya" would not be better, I have doubted, for the East sounds rather vague...
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